Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
etla
Revolution
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Jean-Jacques
Rousseau
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UNDER A STURDY OAK:
ROUSSEAU ON FRATERNITY
Introduction
The fact that "a bust of Rousseau was sculptured in stone taken from the
Bastille. with the words 'Libertf. Egali~. Fraterni~' inscribed at its
base... 1 surely demonstrates a relationship of some kind between Rousseau and this trinity of values which the French Revolution was presumably intended to realize. The precise nature of the relationship is a matter
that I shall leave for others to dispute - forever. most likely: but in the
meantime. I propose to reduce. if not entirely to eliminate. the sense of
"strangeness" that Robert Damton has associated with the third member
of the value trinity.2 Not. I hasten to add. as fraternity may have been
understood (or misunderstood) by those who embraced the cult of
Rousseau. nor, indeed, as it may have been implemented in such seemingly bizarre episodes as the "kiss of Lamourette:.3 Rather. I shall
explicate fraternity as representing the fundamental instrumental value
in Rousseau's political theory: for Rousseau, like the ancients, "understood fraternity as a means to the ends of freedom and equality. ,.4 But in
order to reach that understanding, I shall first consider liberty and
equality as ends.
l.
2.
3.
4.
Joan McDonald. Rousseau and the French Revolution: 1762-1791 (london: The
Athlone Press, 1965), p. 156.
Robert Damton, "What was Revolutionary about the French Revolution?" New
York Review of Books, 19 January 1989. p. 10.
Ibid.: "On July 7, 1792, A.-A. Lamourelle, a deputy from Rhone-et-Loire, told the
Assembly's members that their troubles aU arose from a single source: factionalism.
They needed more fraternity. Whereupon the deputies. who had been at each
other's throats a moment earlier, rose to their feet and started hugging and kissing
each other as if their political divisions could be swept away in a wave of brotherly
love."
Wilson Carey McWilliams, The Idea ofFralemily in America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973) p. 7.
TIIENEWMAN
166
I. Liberty and Equality as Ends
In the Social Contract, Rousseau claims that
if one seeks to derme precisely what constitutes the greatest good of all which
ought to be the end of every system of legislation, one will fmd that it comes down
to these two principal objects:freedom and equality. Freedom because all private
dependence is that much force subtracted from the body of the State; equality
because freedom cannot last without it. (SC, n.ll; Rousseau's emphasis)
Here Rousseau defines (that is, identifies) freedom and equality as
primary political ends, but related in such a way that the latter is a
necessary condition for (the preservation of) the former. However, if one
seeks elsewhere in the Social Contract for a genuine definition of each
of these two values, one will find that it - the meaning - comes down
to the formation of a certain habit. For Rousseau, I would suggest, rather
effectively anticipates Charles Sanders Peirce's notion of a pragmaticist
definition: viz., that "what a thing means is simply what habits it
involves.'oS
Now Rousseau differentiates three different modes of liberty or
freedom - natural, civil, and moral; but, though distinct, they exhibit
the common logical structure of a triadic relation: "the freedom oJXfrom
Y to do/not do or become/not become Z...6 Natural freedom involves the
freedom of an individual from the wills of others and from external
circumstances, but the third term of the triad is elliptical. (cf. 2D, 113,
114; E. 243) Civil liberty, for which the individual exchanges natural
liberty when he 7 becomes a member of a political association, thereby
retains the first two terms of the triadic formula but also specifies the
third term as Ute citizen's freedom "to do as he wishes with such goods
and choices left to him by the silence of the laws, to speak and otherwise
participate in the deliberations of the people assembled concerning
matters of mutual interest, and to vote in every act of sovereignty." (SC,
5.
6.
7.
Charles Sanders Peirce, "How to Make our Ideas Clear" in Charles Hartshorne and
Paul Weiss, eds., CoUecled Papers o/Charles Sanders Peirce (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1968). 5.400.
Cf. Gerald C. MacCallum. Jr.• "Negative and Positive Freedom." in Peter Laslett.
W. G. Runciman and Quentin Skinner. eds •• Philosophy. Polilics and Society:
Fourlh Series (Oxford: Basil Blackwell. 1972). p. 176.
Note on gender: Since Rousseau clearly restricts citizenship to males. and more
specifically to those males who are heads of households. I must perforce use the
pronoun "he" to refer to the beneficiaries of civil and moral freedom in his political
theory.
UNDER A STURDY OAK
167
H.4 and IV.I) Moral freedom, which can be enjoyed only by those who
enter civil society, comprises the freedom of the citizen "from the
governance of appetite to become obedient to a law he prescribes to
himself." (Se, 1.8) But Rousseau also indicates what civil and moral
freedom mean in terms of the habit they jointly involve: viz., that "the
constant will of all the members of the State is the general will, which
makes them citizens and free." (Se, IV.2) In other words, the citizen's
civil and moral freedom should be embodied in a settled disposition to
accept "the supreme direction of the general will" as the basic rule of his
preferences, decisions and conduct. (cf. se, 1.6) 8
Rousseau likewise identifies three different modes of equality natural, moral and legal. Natural equality involves both the capacities
and the vulnerabilities that all human beings share. Moral equality
comprises not only a conscious acknowledgement ofthese capacities and
vulnerabilities, and thus of the desirability of imposing certain constraints (mutual forbearance. to wit) on interpersonal relations. but also
recognition of and respect for each person as a moral agent. Legal
equality adds explicit recognition of the rights. duties and circumstances
each citizen should acquire by virtue of his membership in a political
association.
In concluding Book I of the Social Contract, Rousseau adds
a comment that ought to serve as the basis of the whole system. It is that rather
than destroying natural equality, the fundamental compact on the contrary substitutes amoral and legitimate i.e., lawful equality for whatever physical inequality
nature may have placed between men, and that although they may be unequal in
force or in genius, they all become equal through convention and by right. (SC,
1.9)
Thus. moral and legal equality are intended to replace natural inequality;
but the claim that the fonner are jointly embodied in the fundamental
compact also points to a pragmaticist definition of equality. For. the
fonnula of the fundamental compact "established an equality between
the citizens such that they all engage themselves under the same conditions and should all benefit from the same rights." (Se. H.4) But again.
8.
I have discussed Rousseau's notion of the constant will in previous essays, and so
will not expand upon it here. Cf. especially, "Breaking Rousseau's Chains" and
"The Religious Foundations of Community" in Howard R. Cell and James I.
MacAdam, Rousseau's Response 10 Hobbes (New York: Peter Lang Publishing,
Inc .• 1988).
168
THE NEWMAN
"what this means is simply what habit it involves": that each citizen
should acknowledge the fonnula of the social contract as the ultimate
rule of recognition for well-fonned law. and should develop a settled
disposition to govern his preferences. decisions and conduct in accordance with this rule. Each citizen. indeed. should acquire whatH.L.A. Hart
calls "the internal point of view" towards the rule of law; but Rousseau
insists that this rule "should always tend to maintain an equality of rights
and conditions among the citizens. including an approximate equality of
power and wealth." (Se. 11.11) 9 That is. the rule of law must be
conditioned by habitual application of the formula of the social contract
as the ultimate rule of recognition for well-fonned. legitimate law.
And so. Rousseau not only identifies freedom and equality as the
ends which "every system of legislation" should realize as its greatest
good; he also defines these values as habits which every citizen should
acquire. On the one hand. freedom as the habit of "following the general
will in everything" (PE. 123); on the other. equality as the habit of
following the rule of law as legitimated by the fonnula of the social
contract Two habits. yet so intimately connected that they become. as it
were. two sides of the same coin; for the citizen's constant will qua the
general will is expressed through acts of sovereignty which constitute
the rule oflaw. Still. the edge of the coin remains. That is. liberty is the
rule oflaw which the citizen introjects as "the condition that guarantees
him (qua subject) against all personal dependence" (Se. 1.7); equality is
the rule oflaw which the citizen inlrojects as the condition that guarantees
him (qua subject) against all interpersonal distinctions in rights or
conditions; and the edge of the liberty/equality coin is simply the recognition that an equality of rights and conditions among all Citizen-subjects
constitutes a necessary condition for the preselVation of the freedom of
each. and that only the rule of law governed by the fonnula of the social
contract can maintain such equality. and thereby freedom.
Now. when Rousseau claims that freedom in particular should be
an end of every system oflegislation. his rationale - as noted - is that
"all private dependence is that much force subtracted from the body of
the State ..." (Se. 11.11) 1 would suggest that his use of the word "force"
links this claim with a preliminary fonnulation of "the fundamental
problem which is solved by the social contract": namely. that obstacles
9. HL.A. Hart. The Concepl olLaw (Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1961). p. 102 and pp.
54.55.
UNDER A STURDY OAK
169
to the preselVation of the human species require men to fonn, by
aggregation, a sum of forces that can prevail over those obstacles; yet, if
each man were to add (that is, aggregate) his individual force to that sum,
he would seem thereby to "subtract" (Le., to abnegate) the very means
required for his own self·preselVation. (Se, 1.6) Rousseau then restates
this problem, but now "in the context of his subject":
Find a form of association that defends and protects the person and goods of each
associate with all the common force, and by means of which each one, uniting
with aU, nevertheless obeys only himself and remains as free as before. (Se, 1.6)
This new fonnulation involves at least two important changes.
In the first place. it alludes to Rousseau's concepts of moral and
civil liberty: for, "one obeys only himself' when "he becomes obedient
to a law he prescribes to himself;" and, since the exchange of natural
liberty for civil liberty preselVes the first two tenns of the triadic relation
- that is, the freedom ofthe individual/rom the wills of others, he does
indeed "remain as free as before." But this allusion also selVes to clarify
the connection between freedom and force, or in other words, the sense
in which private dependence qua being subject to another's will pre·
c1udes the realization of the positive third tenn of the triadic relation of
civil liberty • and is thus metaphorically equivalent to the "subtraction of
that much force from the body of the State."
Secondly. the new fonnulation involves a critical shift in tenns:
from the aggregation ofindividual forces in a sum offorces, to the uniting
of persons in an association. But this shift is required by "the context of
Rousseau's subject." that
Man was/is born free, and evel)'whcre he is in chains. One who believes himself
the master of others is nonetheless a greater slave than they. How did this change
occur? I do not know. What can make it legitimate? I believe I can answer this
question. (Se, 1.1)
Here, Rousseau uses another metaphor, and the answer to the question
of legitimation turns on the ambiguity of that metaphor. For chains can
selVe either as the means of enslaving or imprisoning individuals, or as
the means of uniting them closely and strongly. And so. if the chains
which unite each citizen·subject with all the others are forged by an
association as the means of ensuring that each will "obey only himself
and remain as free as before" - i.e., that he will enjoy both moral and
civil freedom; then, surely, the "fastening" of such chains upon the
THE NEWMAN
170
citizen-subject represents a legitimate change from his condition of
natural freedom.
Moreover, these chains or bonds of association are indispensable.
For without them, both equality and liberty will be jeopardized. But such
chains, as I shall now argue, symbolize the third in Rousseau's trinity of
values: namely, fraternity.
n. Fraternity as Means
Though Rousseau never explicitly uses the word "fraternity" in the
Social Contract, he does employ yet another metaphor which reveals the
importance of fraternity for his political theory, and more specifically as
the key factor which distinguishes a political aggregation from a wellfonned political association.
In an aggregation, Rousseau sees "scattered men that have been
enslaved by one who remains a private individual with private interests
i.e., Hobbes' Leviathan, but they have neither public good nor body
politic; and when he dies, his empire is left scattered and without bonds,
just as an oak tree disintegrates and falls into a heap of ashes after fire
has consumed it." (Se, 1.5) In a genuine political association. however,
where
men together consider themselves to be a single body. they have only asingle will.
which relates to their common preservation and the general welfare. Then all the
mechanisms of the State are vigorous and simple. its maxims are clear and
luminous. it has no tangled. contradictory interests; the common good is clearly
apparent everywhere. (Se. IV.l)
Here, Rousseau sees "upright and simple men who enjoy peace. union
and equality. who decide the affairs of State under an oak tree, and who
always act wisely," (Se. IV. I) The contrasting images of an oak tree
which disintegrates into ashes and an oak tree which is sturdy thus
underscore Rousseau's view that the connection between individuals is
tenuous and subject to rapid dissolution in an aggregation, while it is
strong and enduring in a well-formed association.
Though born free, we are in chains; but. as previously noted.
Rousseau believes this change can be legitimated if our chains are, or
become, strong and enduring bonds of union, Now a bond is "a substance
or device. as glue, solder, or a chain which holds things together or unites
them; it is a cause of union." (cf. Webster's Unabridged) In a well-fonned
political association, the bonds of union comprise various devices or
UNDER A STURDY OAK
171
mechanisms which secure the citizen-subjects' material, affective and
moral commitment to each other and to their association, and which are
thereby the "cause" oftheir union. Such bonds of union could also be called
fraternal bonds, though Rousseau doesn't explicitly call them that.
Instead, he provides an operational definition 10 of this concept: that
fraternity is a determinable set of commitment mechanisms or"mechanisms of State" which (in a well-formed association) are "vigorous and
simple." For instance, in summarizing the achievements of Moses,
Lycurgus and Numa, Rousseau observes that
all these legislators of ancient times based their legislation on the same ideas. All
three sought ties that would bind the citizens to the fatherland and to one another.
All three found what they were looking for in distinctive usages; in religious
ceremonies that invariably were in essence exclusive and national: in games that
brought the citizens together frequently, in exercises that caused them to grow in
vigor and strength and developed their pride and self-esteem; and in public
spectacles that, by keeping them reminded of their forefathers' deeds and hardships and virtues and triumphs, stirred their hearts, set them on frre with the spirit
of emulation, and tied them tightly to the fatherland - that fatherland on whose
behalf they were kept constantly busy. (P, 8)
So too, in the equitable federation which Rousseau sketches in the Social
Contract, various commitment mechanisms are deployed as the operational import of fraternity. But, since "in an equitable federation, we
(the citizen-subjects) will make laws" (cf. se, epigraph), and since "the
principal objects of every system of legislation should be liberty and
equality," fraternity qua commitment mechanisms must constitute the
very means by which these ends are secured. For, without these commitment mechanisms, it is unlikely that citizen-subjects will acquire the
requisite habits which embody liberty and equality: namely, to appropriate or introject the rule of law as the expression of the general will and
as the standard for their preferences, decisions and conduct.
Fraternity, understood as a determinable set of commitment mechanisms, is thus the veritable sine qua non of Rousseau 's political theory.
For, without such mechanisms, the equitable federation is virtually
unrealizable - or, in terms of the arboreal metaphor, the oak tree will
disintegrate while it is a sapling. In the next section, I consider those
10.
The notion of an operational definition was formulated by P.W. Bridgman, and
holds that the meaning of a concept is given by a determinate set of operalions
and/or experiments. Its similarity to Peirce's notion of a pragmaticisl definition
should not obscure Ihe facl that there are differences, as this essay reveals.
172
TIIENEWMAN
commitment mechanisms or mechanisms of State which, in an equitable
federation, would be simple, yet vigorous.
In. Under a Sturdy Oak: Fraternity in an Equitable Federation
Among the more notorious claims in the Social Contract is the
following: "that whoever refuses to obey the general will shall be
constrained to do so by the entire body; which means only that he will
be forced to be free." (Se, 1.7) But as Roger Masters observes, "the
context indicates that this claim concerns the means by which each
individual can have an obligation. in conscience, to obey the laws he has
previously enacted" (Sc. endnote #37, p. 138); and indeed, the context
is most illuminating. For Rousseau considers, in the immediately preceding paragraph, what has come to be called the free-rider problem, II
though his fonnulation specifically concerns the injustice which would
result from the "dismembennent" of the citizen-subject - i.e., from his
"wishing to enjoy the rights of the citizen without wanting to fulfill the
duties of a subject." (Se, 1.7) Now the fonnula of the social contract,
which is to serve as the ultimate rule of recognition for well-fonned law,
stipulates that "each member is to be received as an indivisible part of
the whole," and thus as a citizen-subject; but this reception presupposes
that the individual has already expressed his intention - perhaps, by
means of a public pledge or oath (cf. GM.1.3, p. 165) - to accept "the
supreme direction of the general will." In other words, each citizensubject promises to govern his preferences. decisions and conduct in
accordance with the rule oflaw, and thereby to resist the temptation to
become a free-rider. Still, given that "each individual can, as a man, have
a private will contrary to or differing from the general will he has as a
citizen," and also that his private will can sometimes "speak" more
11.
Cf. 10hnRawls. ATheoryOJJusljce(Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 1971).
pp. 267, 268. Incidentally. Rawls has been widely criticized, but has not been caUed
a totalitarian - so far as I am aware; and yet. what he says is almost a paraphrase
of Rousseau's more notorious "foreed to be free" remark. "Once citizens have
agreed to act collectively and not as isolated individuals taking the actions of others
as given, there is still the task of tying down the agreement. .. Assuming that the
public good is to everyone's advantage, and one that all would agree to arrange
for, the use of coercion is perfectly rational from each man's point of view."
Though unlike Rousseau's in important respects, Rawls' defmition of the
principle of fraternity. "as incorporating the requirements of the difference principle" (ibid., p. 105), is also an operational defmition.
UNDER A STURDY OAK
173
insistently than his general will, thereby tempting him to become a
free-rider, "the sovereign must find ways to assure itself of the fidelity
of the citizen-subjects to their engagements." But one of these ways is
already available, as a tacit implication of the formula of the social
contract: that whoever is tempted to become a free-rider will be constrained by the rule oflaw to keep his promise to follow the general will
and resist the self-destructive urgings of his private will. (Se, 1.7)
The coercive edge of the rule oflaw is not. however, the only means
by which the sovereign can "assure itself of the citizen-subjects' fidelity." Rousseau also recommends certain mechanisms of State or
commitment mechanisms intended to encourage each citizen-subject to
acquire and keep those habits which embody liberty and equality, as the
ends to be realized by rule oflaw. For the development of such habits is
a much better guarantee of citizen-subjects' fidelity to the rule of law
than the law's coercive edge could ever be. Thus, the package of
commitment mechanisms which Rousseau recommends to prospective
sovereigns is an essential ingredient in his conception of an equitable
federation.
As previously noted, this package constitutes a sort of operational
definition of the principle of fraternity. And, since such a definition
requires a listing of the operations and/or experiments which supply the
meaning of a concept, 1 shall now display the package's principal
contents, which I divide into three groups - empirical, affective or
spiritual, and political mechanisms - and which should be kept vigorous
and simple.
Rousseau recommends two basic empirical mechanisms: limited
membership and economic austerity. The rationale for the fonner is
derived from his conception of moral freedom. As Jolm Plamenatz
suggests,
It is impossible that each ofus should say 'I alone have made the law that I obey.'
The most we can hope for is that each should say, 'I obey the law that we have
made' rather than 'I obey the law that "Iey have made.' The ideal is that every
citizen should identify himself with the community that makes the law, which.
Rousseau thinks, he cannot do unless he is a member, on the same terms as all
other citizens, of the sovereign legislature. Rousseau knew that this requires that
the sovereign community, the State, should be small. 12
12.
John Plamcnatz, Man and Society Vol. 1 (London Group, Ltd., 1963). p. 401.
174
THE NEW MAN
In practical tenns. the sovereign "we" must be detenninate and identifiable; othelWise. no citizen-subject would be able to say. "I obey the law
we have made." Rousseau puts this point rather directly in the Discourse
On Political Economy: "every man is virtuous when his private will
confonns on all matters with the general will. and we willingly want what
is wanted by the people we love." (PE. 218)
As for economic austerity. Rousseau offers the following advice to
a prospective sovereign:
Do you then want to give stability to the State? Bring the extremes as close together
as possible: tolerate neither opulent people nor beggars. These two conditions,
naturally inseparable, are equally fatal to the common good... (se, n.ll, n.)
Though Rousseau is probably mistaken in viewing material acquisition
as a zero-sum game, he may be very close to the marie in regarding
acquisitiveness. or an unconstrained desire for wealth and luxury. as
inimical to enduring bonds of association.
As soon as public service ceases to be the main business of the citizens, and they
prefer to serve with their pocket-books rather than their persons, the State is
already close to its ruin .• .It is involvement in commerce and the arts, avid interest
in profits, softness and love of comforts that replace personal service by money .
• •Give money and you will soon have chains. (se, ID.IS)
Rousseau, then, urges the sovereign to constrain private acquisitiveness.
which othelWise would encourage an exchange of the chains that unite
for those that enslave.
The affective or spiritual devices in Rousseau's proposed package
of commitment mechanisms include the civil religion, and also "distinctive usages" such as those employed by Moses et al. "to bind the citizens
to the fatherland and to one another." With respect to the fonner, each
citizen-subject should publicly acknowledge
a purely civil profession of faith, the articles of which arc for the sovereign to
establish, not exactly as religious dogmas, but as sentiments of sociability without
which it is impossible to be a good citizen or a faithful subjecL (Se, IV .8)
Rousseau even recommends several articles for this profession of faith.
not the least of which is "that affinning the sanctity of the social contract
and the laws. since it matters greatly to the State that each citizen-subject
have a religion that causes him to love his duties." In addition, Rousseau
assumes that every great legislator will propose "particular regulations
intended to establish distinctive mores, customs and opinions; for these
UNDER A STURDY OAK
175
fonn the true constitution of the State inasmuch as they can preserve a
people in the spirit ofits institution and imperceptibly substitute the force
of habit for that of authority." (Se, 11.12) Though Rousseau quite
properly leaves to the legislator and the sovereign the task of detennining
which particular regulations would be most appropriate for a given
people, he undoubtedly expects that a system of public education and
various public activities - festivals, games, ceremonies and the likewould be included. But whatever the distinctive nature of the beliefs and
activities generated by means of such regulations, their ultimate purpose
remains the same: namely, to facilitate the acquisition by each citizensubject of those habits or settled dispositions regarding the rule of law
which reflect the practical import ofliberty and equality. Indeed, the goal
is precisely to substitute the force of these habits for the authority - the
coercive edge - of the rule of law. In any case, when Rousseau claims
that the success of political, civil and criminal laws depends on the
inculcation of a fourth type of law - comprising mores, customs and
opinion - "in the hearts of the citizens," he implies that liberty and
equality, which are the ends to be realized through the first three types
of law, must be secured by means of fraternity, whose operational
definition is at least partially supplied in the fourth.
To complete his package of commitment mechanisms, Rousseau
recommends two political devices: periodic assemblies of the citizensubjects and an interim government (between such assemblies). According to Rousseau,
the sovereign. having no other force than the legislative power, acts only by laws;
and since the laws are only authentic acts of the general will. the sovereign can
only act when the people is assembled. (SC Ill.12)
Indeed, "any law that the people in person has not ratified is null; it is
not a law." (Se, III.15) Consequently, the sovereign must perpetuate
itself by including in its original constitution a provision for regular,
periodic assemblies of the citizen-subjects. Moreover, the agenda for
these assemblies should always begin with two separate questions:
1. Does it please the sovereign to preserve the present fonn of
government?
2. Does it please the people to leave the administration in the hands
of those who are currently responsible for it?
THE NEW MAN
176
The answer to the first would constitute an act of sovereignty; and,
if it is affinnative. the people assembled would proceed to consider the
second, but in an executive rather than legislative capacity, which entails
a suspension of the government (i.e., the executive) during the meeting
of the people assembled. (cf. Se,III.14) A government is needed at other
times, however. not only because it would be awkward for the citizensubjects to assemble in perpetuity, but also because of the role Rousseau
assigns to the government: that it is to be
an intermediate body between the subjects and the sovereign for their mutual
communication, and charged with the execution of the laws and the maintenance
of civil as well as political freedom. (se. m.l)
Though it may seem rather anomalous. Rousseau's claim that government should facilitate communication between citizens and subjects is a
crucial part of his solution to the free-rider problem. For. the government
could remind any individual "who might wish to enjoy the rights of the
citizen without wanting to fulfill the duties of a subject" that citizen and
subject are extensionally equivalent designations (Rousseau's tenn is
identical correlatives - cf. se, 111.13), and that in consequence the
desires of the would-be free-rider are incompatible: i.e., they involve
what Kant would call a practical contradiction. And this is no small
matter. since it entails the "dismembennent" of the citizen-subject, and
thereby his loss of political selthood.
Though not exhaustive of the potential repertoire of commibnent
mechanisms contained in Rousseau's package, the empirical. affective
and political devices considered above are especially pertinent recommendations to the sovereign of an equitable federation. For together. they
provide the most plausible means by which that sovereign can "assure
itself of the fidelity of citizen-subjects to their engagements," and not
least to their promise to govern their preferences, decisions and conduct
by the rule of law.
IV. Conclusion
As Rousseau remarks. "whoever wants the end also wants the
means, and these means are inseparable from some risks, even from some
losses." (Se, n.S) The context of this claim involves military service and
capital punishment as means to the end of preserving the lives of the
citizen-subjects - means which obviously entail potential risk or loss.
But if the context were shifted to what ought to be the goal of every
UNDER A STURDY OAK
177
system of legislation, then, to paraphrase, whoever wants liberty and
equality, as the proper ends of the rule oflaw, also wants fraternity, which
is the indispensable means for the realization ofthese ends, though itmay
also involve certain risks, even some losses. But Rousseau, at least, never
supposed that establishing and maintaining an equitable federation
would be a simple, risk-free venture. Even the sturdiest oak, which has
endured for many years, may at last be shattered by lightning, attacked
by blight, or consumed by fire.
Howard R. Cell
Glassboro State College
178
TIIENEWMAN
I have used the following translations for citations from
Rousseau's works which appear in this essay:
Roger D. Masters and Judith R. Masters, tr. and ed .• Jean-Jacques
Rousseau: On The Social Contract with Geneva Manuscript and
Political Economy. (Abbreviated as se. GM, and PE respectively.)
New York: Sl Martin's Press, 1978.
Roger D. Masters and Judith R. Masters, tr. and ed., Jean-Jacques
Rousseau: The First and Second Discourses. ('The latter abbreviated as 2D.) New York: St. Martin's Press, 1964.
Allan Bloom, tr., Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Emile. or On Education.
(Abbreviated as E.) New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1979.
Willmoore Kendall. tr., Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Government of
Poland. (Abbreviated as P.) Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company,1972.